“I’ve got my ticket for the long way ‘round/The one with the prettiest of views/It’s got mountains, it’s got rivers, it’s got sights to give you shivers/But it sure would be prettier with you” -Anna Kendrick’s Cups/When I’m Gone

Books I’ve been able to stomach though there are many more, like The Deepest Well, that I’ll need to hold my own hand through one day: When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi, Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness by Susannah Cahalan; Mercies in Disguise: A Story of Hope, a Family’s Genetic Destiny, and the Science That Rescued Them by Gina Kolata, and Truth and Beauty by she-can-do-no-wrong Ann Patchett.

A friend sent this as inspo on a particularly hard day… I sometimes *wish* I broke easily, instead I’m very Real.

I’ve memorized one page in particular fromMyofascial Release, Healing Ancient Wounds: The Renegade’s Wisdom by John F. Barnes, PT. My imagery for a future post on feeling like an injured gazelle unable to ford the river with the herd who instead becomes lion or croc meat comes from the pages of this book…I’ve not been eaten, yet.

I have ketamine infusions every 7th Friday. “No Diggity” helps get me in the mood those mornings. I watch triple threat Sutton Foster’s phenomenal rehearsal of “Anything Goes” in the days before for inspiration. I can’t sing/dance/act like that, but I do work hard to be a high-functioning, well-informed, compassionate woman who also has fibro.

Some of 40 & Over’s imagery comes from these lyrics: “I’ve got my ticket for the long way ‘round/The one with the prettiest of views/It’s got mountains, it’s got rivers, it’s got sights to give you shivers/But it sure would be prettier with you” -Anna Kendrick’s Cups/When I’m Gone, from “Pitch Perfect,” which piggybacks on a folk song from the 1930s.